


Industry Guidelines

by stripped-down-to-skeletons (and_the_devil_laughs)



Category: Kpop - Fandom, SHINee
Genre: Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Self-Denial, hyunmin, i guess??, jongtae - Freeform, religion mentions, side of minkey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 09:53:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8367889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/and_the_devil_laughs/pseuds/stripped-down-to-skeletons
Summary: Some things go unspoken in the entertainment industry.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thank you to Toby! checking my work is always appreciated!

 

There are rules.

 

That's all Taemin has to say about any of it, at least. Rules about that unspoken _thing_ that everyone in the industry lives with; the one that doesn't call itself out but instead lays flatly against his feet as he treads on it.

 

 _That_ terrain is unexplored, but not unknown – a mystery to him as much as it is to spectators. It's a not-entirely-well-kept secret, something to know about but not speak of.

 

Taemin sees it sometimes, this big secret that's kept under wraps. He sees it with Kibum and Minho – he smiles at them in the mornings as they get walk out of the same bedroom, hair tousled and glowing smiles. He hears it at night in shaking bed posts and quickening breath between small breadths of drywall; he's heard the sounds for years – he's just… never talked about it, because that's one of the rules. But, he's _known_.

 

 _For years_.

 

If he's not busy, building a career and distilling his talents, he'll catch a glimpse and wonder what it would be like. What being himself might mean in an industry that likes to trample the unconventional.

 

He's almost too caught up in his dance practice to want it, to want to be able to _say_ that he wants the slice of life that his bandmates have been able to carve out for themselves. But then again, the music can't always out-yell the sound of his thoughts.

 

He's dancing too hard to notice it now, but when he can't sleep, he can't help but _think_ that there's something wrong.

 

He doesn't know if it’s in himself, or the world, but it's wrong and it leaves a bitter taste in the morning.

 

-

 

_Sixty-six, sixty-seven, sixty-eight._

 

He's staring at the wall, now, in the silence of his room and counts the rise and fall of Jonghyun's breath. The steady stream of life that he'd grown used to now, a background noise as comforting as a soft fan or the hum of a street light.

 

Jonghyun finally fell asleep, just before two in the morning – the first time in months he was able to find that evasive _off_ switch to his brain.

 

Tortured genius, Taemin thinks, rolling over in his bed. He doesn't have the same sort of excuse, he reasons out in the dark, staring at the spot he knows Jonghyun is in the pitch-blackness.

 

He's trying to do anything but think about things that make his knuckles white with envy. Where is his sleep, now that his body aches and his mind needs peace?

 

Probably with Jonghyun, because _seventy-eight, seventy-nine, eighty_ , and he's surely dreaming by now, stealing what was left of Taemin's willpower to _shut the fuck up and get some rest_. He can't be mad, but he's not very thrilled with his situation either.

 

Taemin sighs in frustration, a ball of anger hanging in his stomach as he practically feels the hours pass him by – the way his memory started to play, screens behind his eyes turned into movies that keep him awake and vividly _aware_.

 

It's clear as day sometimes, when the lights are dim enough, like pictures on a film roll. Like it is now, when his eyelashes flutter open and observe the nothingness of two in the morning and he returns to feigning sleep.

 

The thoughts – those memories that rattle around late at night– are of Jonghyun. They're all about  Jonghyun and him and occasionally there’s mix of oddly attractive men he sometimes gets a good glance at (though mostly it's just his bandmate).

 

It's Jonghyun – his hair fucked up late after a real night of sleep, twisted in ways that look unflattering and entirely too much like _I just got fucked_. The way his shirt worked its way off him in his troubled slumber, or how warm his body is when he slips behind Taemin to hug him.

 

Then, it’s way he sometimes hears his breath come _too_ fast, late at night when the A/C kicks on. Too shaky and breathy and desperately quiet in the middle of nights, when Taemin has been silent for long enough to be mistaken for sleep...

 

The reminder of sexuality is _also_ something Taemin's learned to live with – there's only so many times a man can jerk off before someone walks in on it, after all. It happens, and Taemin's caught everyone with their hands down their fronts one time or another (or a half dozen other times, in some cases).

 

But, when it's Jonghyun…

 

He could only really think of how he _really_ needed to sleep instead of think of –

 

No, he's not… not like _that_ . He's their youngest, their _makn_ _a_ _e_ , the one who was supposed to be pure and sweet and innocent and everything he wishes he was. He's what his image was shaped into – _that_ was supposed to be him, and he was supposed to be happy with fame and his life and himself.

 

Why wasn't that the case, then? Why wasn't there a mold for him to cast his soul in so that it matched what his body, his fame, was?

 

He knows his soul best and it cringes at the way he smiles on TV, the way he talks, walks, sings, _dances –_ the way it all feels like a complex lie that he built all on his own, no company assistance needed (though, possibly, maybe it was aided by the company). It felt like a shell already drained of its yolk, shiny and perfect but gutted for display for Easter.

 

Taemin bit back a hitch in his breath, that way you do when trying not to wake someone – not wake a roommate.

 

His soul cringes at all the things he does and all the things he says – or doesn't say, doesn't do when his fingers twitch to follow the curve of his own body, down, down, _down_ –

 

_Stop._

 

His hands always – _usually_ – do.

 

 _There_ it was, again like a tireless lover that's never been satisfied: the way his body doesn't like to stay on the same page as his principles, the doctrines of his faith. His body was neither his lover or his friend and he wondered why he was cursed with it at all when all it did was give him away.

 

But then, there was the lack of obedience that also stayed within him, a side to the multi-faced coin of his life. It was the pestering, enduring idea that his ideology was– was fucked up. It was a thought that he brushed off every time he brought it up.

 

He often cursed his position in the band, the kid who debuted at fourteen, and how that image just _stuck_ – he feels as bad about every awkward boner growing up as he does now, basically an adult who’s never been allowed those sort of thoughts.

 

And then there’s the way his eyes follow his hyung's hips as he walks the halls -- it’s not right, right? How he watches him too deeply in the morning when he wakes him in the morning, or passes him on stage, and there’s a thump in his chest like getting kicked by a horse.

 

It’s not right and he doesn’t dwell but then he thinks how badly, how strongly he wants to think that it could be okay. That if it were ever okay, ever, to think like he does, then it might be okay for him and that just once, it would be right.

 

It’s not easy, though. There’s no cure to impurity and when Jonghyun dances and smiles and brings him into his arms, or how he sings in the shower like he's composing the next masterpiece on their album, it almost hurts.

 

Taemin is eighteen. He's a man, and he's living with four other boys and god damn it if he's not in the prime of his sexuality, but… but he just feels _bad_. Bad and rotten like apples left untouched (maybe quite literally, the thought comes and goes) and everything else horrible that the world seems to smother him in with his age, with his gender, with his religion or the eye of the press.

 

What a joke it must be when he wakes up, hard and bluntly aware of every inch of fabric on his skin, of the draft in the room from the open door and the fact that Jonghyun is getting dressed just behind his back.

 

He's singing again, humming a tune from one of the lyrics he's working on. It's addictive – not the melody he hums but the way he does it.

 

That sort of passion and energy isn't easy to stand up against; rather, it’s like instinct to get swept up in it and never want to let go. Taemin wants to be pulled in, but instinct drives his feet into the sand, and the erosion does nothing to soften his determination.

 

Jonghyun is many things, but he is never ashamed of himself. Taemin hears the clarity and command of his whispering singing and he tries not to think about what comes after.

  


-

 

A cold shower and shaking hands are often where he finds himself.

 

-

 

Taemin catches an eyeful of lyrics every so often – stray paper here on the table or in the kitchen or floating around under his bed.

 

This time, he picks up the discarded paper and when he reads the lyrics scribbled on the scrunched parchment, his stomach knots. He looks for a second and by the next, he's torn it apart and crumpled it as much as possible.

 

Those lyrics, all sex and yearning and so obviously written about girls. About normality.

 

Taemin sulks all day and only feels whole once the dance room is his and his alone.

 

-

 

Jonghyun's girlfriend is nice. Her smile is free and so are her hands, always on his back or shoulders or drifting and exploring.

 

Taemin has that bitter feeling all the time, now.

 

-

 

Taemin resents Jonghyun's lyrics – even once he breaks up with her, Jonghyun can't seem to shake the way he wrote about how he felt about her.

 

It's hard for Taemin to sing about her and not feel broken.

 

-

 

He hates the romantic feelings worse than the sexual ones – sex was biology, was breathing and blood flow and the need to touch and be touched. The romance, the way he wanted to simply _be_ with Jonghyun, dreaming of his smile and his voice and how good he was – _that_ was not biology. That was chemistry.

 

He didn't want chemistry if it justified loving someone off limits.

 

-

 

He's eighteen and his career has kept him from many things, including the luxury of admitting to himself that he was in love with his friend. With a boy.

 

Also, maybe, it kept him away from romantic encounters that a lot of boys have had by this time.

 

There was a drunk encounter, and she was willing and he wasn’t but they still tried. That was last year and it was a mistake. No one knew and thank god they didn’t, he wouldn’t have an explanation for it otherwise.

 

It's embarrassing but he shrugs it off, stays in his corner and concentrates on doing his best in his craft -- life without sex wasn’t too bad if he worked hard on his career, on dacing, and that _is_ what he started out in SM to do, after all.

 

It's kept him painfully confined to work and himself alone. Living with four other boys without a moment of privacy, he's never felt more isolated (even when they're taking care of their favorite maknae, checking in on him when he seems not _quite_ right. Maybe his smile falters and maybe they're concerned, but he'll smile again and say that it's exhaustion and mental energy and he's actually “doing very well.”)

 

He's their little brother and he's utterly convincing.

 

It's embarrassing and he pretends it's not.

 

-

The company encourages dating within the ranks. Idols dating idols is easy to control, and it's easy to drive a private life in an industry that makes idol's time and attention worth more than gold.

 

Taemin has been told that if he were to date, it should be in the company. Girls from Girls Generation or Red Velvet or f(x). Obviously, it would have to be after his nineteenth birthday, but that he was assured was a right he had.

 

Taemin never does this. He's been asked out more times than he cares to count.

 

-

 

Taemin comes home late at night with that never-ending ache in his limbs that demand a hot shower. Dance is hell when it comes to deadlines, but he bears it in shaking thighs the best he can and when he’s done.

 

Minho and Kibum are at it – it's breathy and achingly loud and Taemin tunes it out when it gets too noisy, the way his friends make each other feel… good.

 

That's what it was supposed to be, right? Good? He's technically nineteen now but he suddenly feels twelve all over again. (Flashes from last year and that one encounter come to mind and absolutely none of it felt good, even the kisses.)

 

His shower turns cold after all, and his ears are drowning out more than just the moaning coming from down the hall.

 

-

 

Jonghyun slips into Taemin's bed. It's midnight and Taemin was just talking to him about the video game they just bought, how he thought it was too easy and that they needed to get a new one and then he _slips into bed_ and suddenly Taemin is forced to think about how much he loves the man pulling him into a warm, engulfing embrace.

 

“Hyung?”

 

“I'm tired.”

 

Sometimes, Jonghyun can sleep if he's next to Taemin. It's a good arrangement, because Taemin loves to share a bed. It feels less engulfing with Jonghyun there.

 

“Then sleep,” Taemin whispers, ignoring the best he can the way Jonghyun's lips are pressed against the crook of his neck. Jonghyun sighs, entangling his arms around Taemin's waist and scrunching his hand up in the flannel of his sleep shirt.

 

“Thanks, I really need it.”

 

Taemin doesn't mind. He doesn't sleep, though.

 

-

 

His hyung is shorter than him and he loves it, sometimes. Hugs are cozier and they fit just right. He takes up just the right amount of space in the car that they can fall asleep on each other and it’s the most perfect thing, in Taemin’s mind.

 

But then, when Jonghyun's hand is on his thigh, idling in the most frustrating and embarrassing way for Taemin, he suddenly feels bigger than life.

 

-

 

“Again, now this time breathe in fully and then let it out slowly,” Jonghyun instructs. “Focus on this and you’ll have longer periods of time where you can sing on one breath.”

 

Taemin's breath wavers, that nervous way that often found its way into his speaking when he was younger.

 

Jonghyun is behind him, hands encasing his stomach in a way that Taemin couldn't stand. He pressed harder, fingers just below his sternum. “Breathe in, I can tell you're not quite getting all the depth that you need to hold these notes. You need to work on this, especially.”

 

Taemin tries again, but he knows he's not as good as he should be at this point in their career. He's better, but he's nowhere near where he feels he should be. After all, he's been told this before.

 

It seems like a waste of time – of the energy Jonghyun gives him however many times a week.

 

“Hey, are you okay?” Jonghyun's tone is professional, but a note of deep concern follows through his question.

 

“Yes?”

 

“Are you sure, you're shaking?”

 

Taemin gets his body under control immediately – show business _has_ taught him something useful.

 

“Of course, hyung. I'm just really tired, schedules are long.”

 

Jonghyun's hands – his entire presence, just behind him and just out of reach – departs and now they're sitting again, each on their own bed. Taemin's legs cross and he teeters just on the edge of his mattress, a perfect balance of what he hopes is composure and ease.

 

They practice in their room only when the others are out and Jonghyun insisted it was only because it was more comfortable, though he knows it was because no one would hear Taemin. It was for Taemin's comfort as much as it was for the ears of anyone who happened to be near by.

 

Jonghyun stares at him, an undertone of… something Taemin can't place. Something, painting his features solemn and more contemplative than Taemin would feel comfortable being at the receiving end of.

 

“… ah, Jjong? Hyung?”

 

He's staring and Taemin can feel his neck warm. It spreads, slowly, a fire fanned on by the way Jonghyun's expression turns soft and intense and…

 

He smirks, rolling his eyes. “You're staring at me. You in love?”

 

“Um, you're staring at me _first_ , hyung,” and their tone is thinly humorous – thinly anything but that smoldering feeling that Taemin wonders if Jonghyun can feel too. Something about the word _love_ doesn't sound like a question – but then again, Taemin knows he's projecting, knows what wishful thinking is and that he's done enough of it for a lifetime.

 

Jonghyun rolls his eyes again, and he gets up to lay on Taemin's bed. “Lay with me and talk about video games, I'm bored and I really can't imagine doing anything else.”

 

“No more lessons? Am I still that bad that you'd give up?”

 

Jonghyun snorts, moving. “You were never bad. Lacking confidence, yes, but not bad.”

 

They retire that conversation silently, mutually.

 

Taemin puts some space between them and they're off again, that steady stream of conversation flowing from them so easily that it might feel natural to Taemin to stay at this distance.

 

Then Jonghyun grabs his hands and Taemin wishes he could say something. His throat closes up, too dry, and suddenly, Jonghyun is threading their fingers together in the silence.

 

-

 

It‘s a crush and it's made Taemin wonder, just what does it mean? Is he gay if he only likes one man?

 

That one man is on stage right now and he's supposed to be going out there, do what they _practiced._ Just like they practiced. For the fans.

 

His heart thumped in his chest and the nerves never wore off, even after the adrenaline of getting his hair pulled did.

 

-

 

Taemin is sure that he's not… like _that_. Not gay. He can't actually convince himself of that any more, and Jonghyun has fallen asleep next to him in their hotel.

 

“Hyung?”

 

He's passed out, spent, leg looped over Taemin's in a softly intimate way that makes a heat wave overcome him, from the hips up.

 

Maybe he's _like that_. He can't imagine life without his hyung, what else could it be but love?

 

-

 

Jinki asks if he's okay. He's dancing too much this week, even by Taemin standards. Jonghyun is reading a book in the corner of their company van, but his eyes snake up every so often to look at the two sitting across from him.

 

Taemin wonders, did he ask Jinki to ask?

 

“Why wouldn't I be? I'm just practicing. The new choreography is… a lot more. A lot harder.”

 

No one buys it – the kid dances in his sleep, and Jinki's eyes uncertainly peer through him.

 

“Okay. Just, lay off for a day soon so you can recover. We can't have you out because you danced yourself into the ICU.”

 

Taemin nods and Jonghyun stares at the same place on the page for the rest of the ride.

 

-

 

Jonghyun is waiting for him, the kitchen table littered with pages of his handwriting . Jonghyun looks up to the dorm door and then to the clock and Taemin knows he probably should have come home earlier. Or later. Just not at the time he did.

 

“Where were you?”

 

“At the studio?”

 

“I asked manager, he said you weren't there. Said you said you were going to recover at home before we start shooting.”

 

“Oh...”

 

Taemin was dressed as muted and inconspicuously as possible and Jonghyun visibly became aware of that. He was wearing his discreet citizen clothes that no one would look twice at, and Jonghyun was staring like he was undressing him, undressing his story.

 

Taemin was about to say something when he heard it. The shaking of the walls, the way they fell into a rhythm that Taemin had been doing his best to avoiding hearing all together.

 

Minho and Kibum were doing _that_ thing.

 

Jonghyun sighed, dropping his head into his hands and chuckling humorlessly. “Ah, god, those two. I swear, I don't have insomnia, they're just always keeping me up.”

 

Taemin doesn't really know how to respond to that – what is he supposed to say? How is he supposed to say it? Aren't they supposed to ignore it when it's this loud?

 

Taemin spent years keeping himself away from this part of dorm life – pretending to be asleep at night, or on nights like this, coming home so late that he couldn't possibly expect anyone to be awake when he returned. It's a craft he‘s honed over the past five years, and, honestly, it was bound to come up. He was lucky he got away with it this long, in fact.

 

It's three AM.

 

Jonghyun's looking at him. He's been looking at him lately – intensely, like he wanted to wear him thin.

 

“I was just, out, trying to relax. Took a walk.”

 

Taemin takes off his cap and sets it on the counter. He takes cereal out from the taller cabinet and he's pouring himself a bowl when,

 

“It's been every night this week.”

 

There's no reason for him to feel as taut as he does in that split second. He hums, whether in approval or disagreement is anyone's guess.

 

“It's annoying, isn't it?”

 

“What is, hyung?” His bowl is too full.

 

Jonghyun huffs a little, drumming his fingernails against the laminate of the kitchen table. “You know. Kibum and Minho. Jinki's pissed off about how loud they've been getting lately.”

 

“Oh, ah, yeah. Yeah.”

 

“Hmm, aren't you sort of, I don't know, upset to have them ruining your sleep?”

 

“Oh, well, I guess I've been practicing and preparing a lot. I've been getting in later than… than they're... They're getting loud.”

 

“I noticed.”

 

A shiver runs up Taemin's back and it occurs to him, just how easy it could be to see through him. He tries to change the subject, and it's flimsy at best when, “Where's Jinki?”

 

“Oh, he's at his girlfriend's. Returning her shirts or shoes or something. I think it was just an excuse to be with her before promotions, you know?”

 

He grabs his bowl and turns back to Jonghyun, whose eyes are trained on him like a wild dog honing in on a small animal. (Or, at least, that's how it feels; Taemin's shrunk to the size of a rodent and he wanted nothing more than to scurry away and live in a dark hole.)

 

Taemin smiles. “Yeah, I guess so. We won't have a lot of time for personal things for a while.”

 

“Well, yes, I think so. Except… you.”

 

Taemin thinks that he might look like a deflated balloon, popped in an instant and his smile is faltering. His eyes are glinting, weakened like rocks broken with a pickaxe. “Hyung?”

 

Jonghyun is standing up, the embodiment of determination that Taemin knows so well. All of his years of good luck were crashing down on him right at the moment his hyung is standing in front of him.

 

Jonghyun's locked eyes with Taemin, grabbing the bowl that he had secured between his hands and setting it out of sight.

 

“I think your entire life is in the studio or practice room or on stage, isn't it?”

 

“I mean I… I guess. I'm just – ”

 

“I don't think I've seen you take someone home, actually.”

 

How does this come out of nowhere?

 

“Or, really, go to someone's home, like Jinki – ”

 

“Hyung, really, please...”

 

Jonghyun puts hands on either side of Taemin, braced against the counter top and Taemin doesn't know where to put his own hands.

 

Taemin has faced the world, bare chested and exposed like nerves caught in the wake of a flame. He's grown up in the entertainment industry. He's stood his ground on countless landslides and all it takes is eye contact with one person to shake him entirely.

 

Jonghyun is looking up at him, holding him in his gaze like a snake charming the charmer and Taemin can't _breathe can't think can't feel anything_ – except–

 

Except… “I noticed a lot of things, Min-ah, lots of thing that I haven't talked about.”

 

The rules are crumbling, now, and Jonghyun's leaning into Taemin's ear. Taemin shivers, shockwaves  ending in his hands that don't know how to stop.

 

Jonghyun looks at them and his right hand is laying on top of Taemin's, sandwiched on the counter. “It's been five years since debut, but I've known you longer than that. In all the years, you've never… never brought someone home. Never talked about crushes or girls you liked – never have I seen your eyes gloss over like Jinki does with Jessica.”

 

Taemin's mouth is a desert, a landscape that can't be crossed. Jonghyun is good – always has been – at reading Taemin's silent language, the one spoken in expressive eyes and harsh breath and sweaty palms. It makes sense, how he'd know this whole time, how he'd _see_ what was right in front of him.

 

Still.

 

“Hyung, you know… I'm busy… and i'm only now able to officially date and– ”

 

“Did rules ever matter to you? They didn't when you sneaked in cigarettes for everyone, when you went behind manager's back and sneaked out to get food – to hide _our_ porn, to cheat on diets, to–”

 

“ _I get it_ , let it go.”

 

Jonghyun pulls away from Taemin. The glint of a smile on his lips softens, transforms into the sort of intimacy Taemin wishes he knew. “I have a question, Min.”

 

It can't be anything good, but… “What is it?”

 

Jonghyun had dark circles – years of lost sleep – and he was drilling for oil, unashamed, when his eyes pierced Taemin's. “What are Kibum and Minho doing?”

 

The Gods conspired, and a thump against the wall followed by a sharp moan flowed down the stairs.

 

“Ah, hyung, really...”

 

The banging – the rhythmic _pounding_ – suddenly sped and–

 

“No, really, Taemin, what are they doing?”

 

This is stupid. “You know what... what they're doing, hyung.”

 

“Can't you just say it?”

 

Jonghyun is in his space now – in the fragile area around Taemin where he can feel his body heat, his breath, and if he could listen of the sound of his own, he'd hear his heartbeat.

 

Maybe it would have beat fast– the way Taemin's was when his eyes were on their feet, on the checkered laminate floor, pretending that he wasn’t being confronted in his very own kitchen.

 

“Really _I have to go –_ ”

 

“Taemin, are you gay?”

 

Jonghyun would be the first one to ask him. He'd be the only one to ask him. He breaks a lot of rules, but Taemin never expected him to break _the rule_.

 

Taemin's shaking, the way Jonghyun's searching for his eyes. The way he's wanting an answer and Taemin thinks it's okay, now, okay to talk.

 

He nods, drawing in a breath as shaky as road signs in a hurricane.

 

Jonghyun hums, then pulls him into a hug that is a lot more accepting than Taemin expected.

 

-

 

Everyone is sitting around the table – there's a feast and they're starving and this is the first true meal they've had in months.

 

Minho and Kibum are beside each other and no one says a word about how their eyes lock, but everyone sees it and it's beautiful, Taemin thinks, to see love as unashamed as theirs.

 

Taemin smiles directly at the two, trying to be polite instead of laugh at how dumb they can be – how dumb they are and how the fact that the two of them together makes them twice as dumb.

 

“Do you really think you're gonna get the first solo? Psh, It'll be me for sure,” Kibum said, a mouthful of rice forcing his words to contort to its shape.

 

Minho laughs. “Rap is hot in the market this year and the company would love a piece of this.”

 

Jonghyun is laughing with all of them, and he grabs Taemin's hand under the table. “As if. I'm sure it'll be Taemin, for sure.”

 

“Hyung, please,” Taemin giggles – it sounds too airy, too heated, but it's genuine and he loves the way Jonghyun smiles at hm and squeezes his hand.

 

“Oh but I'm telling the truth, it has to be you – our precious maknae. Doesn't everyone agree?”

 

Approving nods and words through stuffed mouths rebound across the table, circling back around to Taemin as he ducks his head in modesty.

 

He's still smiling, and it feels unlike any time he's ever sat around his brothers, his members, and felt at peace. “Hyung, you're too confident in me.”

 

“Ah, but you need to learn to brag a little.”

 

“You need to learn modesty.”

 

“Amen,” Jinki added, right before sticking another piece of pork.

 

-

 

Taemin never brought up that conversation with Jonghyun – the one in the kitchen that turned into an embarrassing sob-fest in less than a minute. It remained, as it always did, a subtext of every conversation, every part of their lives, that they treaded over it as if it weren't always there.

 

Until, now. It's a hotel room, one in Tokyo they'd been in before, and Taemin's on his own bed tracing patterns in the ceiling with his eyes when he asks how Jonghyun knew he was gay.

 

“It's the way you look at me, Min, that really gets to me.”

 

And Taemin has no idea how it went from one secret, to another, with just one breath. From Jonghyun knowing about him being who he is to loving who he does.

 

Taemin chokes on air and he's clamming up, a hot seconds difference between last minute's ceiling doodles and being faced with… with–

 

“I think I saw you watching me off stage and I don't think anyone really looks at me like that. It wasn't like you wanted to tear my clothes off, it's like you were taken away.”

 

Taemin turns his head, and Jonghyun is staring at his crossed legs, hands fidgeting with the remote that was more a prop than anything. It made him look busy, and Taemin's heart sped up.

 

“I...”

 

Normally, Taemin would be apologizing, trying to fix the wrongness of himself and how dare he fall in love with a friend. How dare he betray that trust that friends are supposed to have.

 

Taemin draws a blank, heart still feverish in the way it was trying to vibrate out of existence – he gets up and sits next to Jonghyun, an instinct that caught himself off guard. He's made of nerves when his hand comes to lay on Jonghyun's shoulder, but he takes pride in his steadiness.

 

Jonghyun looks at him – Taemin's never been so torn apart than with that look and his hand retreats. “I don't think anyone's stared at me and looked like they were in love.”

 

Taemin wants to shrink into himself but, “There are literally thousands of girls who stare at you and want to marry you, hyung.”

 

“But do they know me?”

 

Taemin's face is overheating and he looks down to the same remote in Jonghyun's hand. “No.”

 

“Do they spend time with me playing video games and making food late at night and do they fall asleep on my shoulder when we're driving to the airport?”

 

Taemin shakes his head, and Jonghyun laughs. “See, then they don't really love me.”

 

 _But I do_.

 

Jonghyun tilted Taemin's head up, faced him, and kissed him – it was one movement, so smooth that Taemin didn't realize it was happening until about three seconds in.

 

He's kissing back, slowly – _really really_ poorly because in the last year, he's probably only kissed someone three times, all of which had been drunk encounters with people he realized weren't Jonghyun.

 

Jonghyun snorts, still kissing him but suddenly urgently trying not to laugh.

 

Taemin's almost offended till Jonghyun says, “Hey, feel how cold my hands are,” and sneaks his hand underneath Taemin's thick sweater.

 

It might have been an excuse to get close to Taemin, but Taemin doesn't care because his world rearranged itself in front of him and– _damn–_

 

“Hyung!” He recoiled, shocked at just how cold Jonghyun's hands were.

 

The tension is still there but they're smiling like idiots. “See?” Jonghyun said over a lopsided smile, eyes bold and shy at the same time. He's collected Taemin's hands in his and they're sitting closely, and Taemin wants to lean in but doesn't know if he should. If he could.

 

Jonghyun is looking at his lips – so obviously, so distractingly that Taemin doesn't register what is being said.

 

“I'd really like to kiss you again,” is what he hears when Jonghyun repeats himself, and his ears warm and his stomach flutters and he still nods _yes_ . There's subtext, it sounds like _I love you, I can't trust myself to love you, what if this is a dream_ , and he's crying before he realizes he's doing it.

 

“Ah, god, Tae,” Jonghyun gasped, breathless. His fingers swipe across Taemin's tear-slicked cheeks and surges forward, like he's drawn so entirely to Taemin that he can't help but try to bridge the imaginary distance between them.

 

Taemin's breath is always sucked up into Jonghyun, and when he breathes back in it's all Jonghyun; his scent surrounding him, his hands endlessly unsatisfied and constantly finding their ways back onto his bare skin.

 

Jonghyun is a force, a train, something so unstoppable and utterly sweeping that Taemin catches his enthusiasm and shifts a little.

 

“ _Mmm, ah_ , Tae,” Jonghyun says in a moment of separation. He's guiding, nails grazing the exposed skin at Taemin's back, a subtle force that directs them onto their sides.

 

The kissing is infinite – it's how Taemin imagines passion to feel if it were distilled into only a few moments, a few minutes, of breathlessness and so much urgency that he might have thought the world was ending.

 

The kissing is not infinite, and neither is the heat in the lowest parts of his stomach. Jonghyun's legs are between his, wrapped around each other, a twining of limbs that felt as natural as it was new. The context, the swollen lips and puffy eyes, was new, while memories of falling asleep in a similar way were as old as memory itself.

 

There were moments where Taemin couldn't bring himself to truly look at Jonghyun, even with him laying right beside him and looking at him, all teary eyed and pink and at a loss for footing.

 

“Your eyes.”

 

“What about them?”

 

Jonghyun's thumb was on Taemin's hip, the only exposed part of him, rubbing circles. “They're pretty.”

 

“They're swollen and gross.”

 

“If you haven't noticed, your lips are too – but they're still beautiful.”

 

The last stray tears flitted down Taemin's face, the necessary last few hangers on that he needed to rid himself of. The words stung – bitter and foreign and offset, like he was perched delicately on fantasy that sudden words would knock him back to a reality he didn’t want to be in.

 

“Hey, talk to me,” Jonghyun nudged.

 

“Do… are you… like me?”

 

“Mmmhmm.”

 

Taemin smiled. “Do you like me?”

 

A wider smile grazed Jonghyun’s face, and he rolled his eyes. “Yep. A lot.”

 

Taemin didn’t want to cry anymore but he did and this time -- it felt different. Happier, like he could breathe again (or for the first time, maybe).

 

Still cloudy, still filled with haze and confusion, he had it in him to cry and smile. “I think… I think I can work with that.”

 

Jonghyun snorted, brushing away tears and letting his fingers linger on Taemin’s skin. “Dummy, you’re gonna have to work with it. I really want this to work and I want to be with you and I want _you_.”

 

Jonghyun, his hands on Taemin’s thighs, is bigger than life again -- a monument to all the things Taemin couldn’t do. That Jonghyun -- the untouchable, the beautiful, the one he daydreamed about -- was shattering now, and Taemin felt like it was okay.

 

It was okay to take his hand, hold it there on his jeans over his thighs and let himself appreciate it. Just a bit.

 

“I just, don’t -- I don’t know how.” Taemin feels stupid when he says it. He feels like he _should_ know.

 

“Neither do I. I don’t think anyone does.”

 

“Well not everyone but normal people do and --“

 

“Normal? What, you mean straight?”

 

Taemin was scrambling for footing -- but he had none. That’s _exactly_ what he meant - normal people, the ones who can have kids and hold hands and not feel like their skin was crawling with eyes that hated seeing them. Taemin swallowed and had nowhere to go, just retreat to his corner and feel like a shadow against the sun.

 

Jonghyun had a torn look on his face, in his searching eyes. He didn’t look upset,Taemin realized. It took a second before he recognized that it wasn’t pity, that it was sadness.

 

Suddenly, their hands shifted and Jonghyun rolled on top of him, thigh splitting Taemin’s legs open. Jonghyun didn’t meet resistance, not an ounce of _stop_ , and his hands perched him on top of Taemin.

 

Jonghyun kissed his forehead, his breath cascading over Taemin -- his scent, the toothpaste and the floral and the way he always had some candle scent stuck on him, surrounded and engulfed and Taemin didn’t know what to do with it.

 

“You know, those people won’t ever get to experience this and that’s sad. They won’t have half of what we can “ -- and he kissed the spot between Taemin’s eyes -- “They won’t know what this is like” -- and he kissed his nose -- “They won’t get it and they’ll miss out on you and me and honestly who gives a fuck about them? I only give a damn about you.”

 

Jonghyun hovered, lingering like a question, before finally kissing Taemin.

 

It felt like a declaration -- it felt like love masked in poetry and Taemin nodded when he came eye to eye with Jonghyun. He couldn’t shake the feeling, stop thinking, that this kiss was wrong -- or not entirely right.

 

But then it deepened -- _fuck,_ is Jonghyun a good kisser -- and he couldn’t think anymore, not about his family or his guilt or anything inbetween.

 

“Ah, Jjong... “ Taemin whispered, his breath hot and steamy, looking at Jonghyun with hooded eyes.

 

Jonghyun chuckled -- Taemin felt it resonate against him, their chests so close together -- and went in for a quicker kiss. “It’s like that -- you look at me like that. That’s how I knew.”

 

Taemin laughed into his mouth and rolled with all that followed.

**Author's Note:**

> 1 of 1 is jazzy and all but feel good thoroughly rocks my socks. opinions?


End file.
